We've hopefully reached the end of our kale experiments for the season with a new bounty of summer vegetables and fruits hitting the market. To close out the season of kale though, I have been making a lot of white bean and kale soup and even tried a new braised Cavolo Nero (or lacinto) kale dish a few months ago.
The white bean and kale soup recipe I have been using is incredibly flexible to new ingredients and different types of kale – definitely a year-round delicious meal. The modifications I consistently made the three times I made the soup were to include 3 cloves of garlic, add 1/2 tsp or so of fresh rosemary and 1 – 2 inch parmesan rind to the broth, and to partially smash the beans while cooking to give the soup a richer texture. I sadly did not come up with these modifications on my own, rather found them used in similar recipes from Epicurious.com and Martha Stewart. With at least one attempt of the soup, I also added more water with the kale to make sure the soup had more of a soup than stew consistency. I think the key to an outstanding result is definitely using a parmesan rind piece while simmering the broth – it definitely adds complexity and a nice, mind saltiness to the broth.
Unfortunately, the next kale dish was far from stellar. For this dish, I used lacinto, dinosaur or cavolo nero kale to make the Vegetarian Times Braised Cavolo Nero Kale recipe. I halved the amount of kale and water called for in the recipe while keeping the flavoring ingredients (onions, carrots, etc.) as is. I also added a vegan bouillon cube to the water for a more flavorful result.
The final dish was still pretty bland despite these efforts. It also was too kale-y and bitter, even though I used lacinto kale which is pretty mild as far as kale goes. Serving the dish over orechiette and with a healthy amount of grated parmesan also did not save the dish from being a let down.
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